Heading into Week 15, the Vikings are a game behind the Chicago Bears for the NFC's final playoff spot. Under such a scenario, they would be one of the prime beneficiaries of the expanded playoff system that commissioner Roger Goodell mentioned at the NFL owners' meetings Wednesday, Dec. 12.

But defensive end Jared Allen said he isn't interested in such a system.

"It's stupid," Allen said of the possibility of adding one or two playoff teams to each conference. "I think that's a dumb idea. The reason our league is so much better than other leagues, I think, is because of that competition. Every game means something. There's 162 games in baseball. You're like, 'Eh.' No one really watches until the end, right? Basketball's the same way. There's no real significance in every game. I think you damage the sport. ... Our games become less significant every week if you know, 'Oh, I can still lose half my games and sneak into the playoffs.' "

The NFL has awarded playoff berths to six teams in each conference since the 1990 season but went from three wild-card spots to two in 2002, when the Houston Texans became the league's 32nd team and the NFL realigned into eight four-team divisions.

Expanding the playoffs would put the third wild-card spot back in play, and could even put the NFL on par with the NBA and NHL, where 50 and 53 percent of the league's teams qualify for the postseason, respectively.

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If the NFC had seven or eight playoff spots this season, the Vikings would be in a three-way tie with the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys for the final bids. As it is, they need to climb over both of those teams and hope the Bears slip in the final three weeks, and it's possible that a 10-win team could be left out of the NFC playoffs.

Since the league expanded to 12 playoff spots in 1990, only eight teams have missed the playoffs after winning 10 or more games in the regular season. The last time it happened was in 2010, when the New York Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost a three-way tiebreaker for the NFC's final spot with the Green Bay Packers, who became the NFC's first No. 6 seed to win the Super Bowl.

Allen played on a 10-win team that was left out of the playoffs in Kansas City in 2005. But that experience didn't leave him feeling like the league needed to expand the postseason.